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I'm no saint when it comes to addiction and being on my phone for more than I should be, but I have a sister who is in her mid 20s right now, and for the last c

I'm no saint when it comes to addiction and being on my phone for more than I should be, but I have a sister who is in her mid 20s right now, and for the last couple of years she has slowly isolated herself from life and her family, she spends most of her time in her room on the phone and does weird things like get cosmetic surgeries, ordering cosmetics, etc. It's bizarre. She does this and all the while never leaves the house, other than to go to work. She doesn't share her actual thoughts and gets angry when asked about it. You might be reading this and thinking that there's more to it, but sadly there isn't. It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning. It's one thing to have an issue and work through it slowly, but it's something else to isolate yourself and live your life through others - while those "others" prosper from your own ignorance. I'm sure her past experiences are playing a role in this behavior, but the whole cosmetics things - I know for a fact there are a lot of influencers who peddle this crap, and if you lack self-awareness then I can see how easy it is to get stuck in this cycle. I just wish there was an easy way out of it.

deleted 3y ago
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gambiting 3y ago
>>But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning. The thing is, I'm sure for her it doesn't feel that way. She probably feels a lot of purpose and meaning in following all these people online and participating in social activities around them. That's part of the addiction too - it can feel meaningful for a long time.
- fisf 3y ago
  > That's part of the addiction too - it can feel meaningful for a long time. That's obviously true of meth,etc. as well. The first step is always to realize you have a problem that's negatively impacting your life.
tossandthrow 3y ago
Out of curiosity: What do you think she should do? Is it that she does not go out with friends? I think her situation is not at all bizarre – I actually think it is overly normal. Going out with friends: Fair enough, you sit at the same bar talk about the same things, etc. I think we are in a crisis of communities. Even if your sister wanted to engage there are no good places to do it.
emmelaich 3y ago
As her brother you might be the only one capable of rescuing her from a shitlife. No (wo)man is an island, entire unto itself.
apexalpha 3y ago
>It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. In my culture this is exactly what family should do. "Soft doctors make stinking wounds".
- worthless-trash 3y ago
  > and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. If you loved your sister, you should do something, if direct confrontation isnt working, take another route. > In my culture this is exactly what family should do. I assume you mean "family should intervene here", because if you don't who would ?
  - teekert 3y ago
    Sure, you may try (I did and don't regret it, sounds like OP also tried), if only for you to feel better about it yourself. But my experience with addiction in the family is that they can and will drag you down with them. To love is to let go, at some point. My experience (with alcohol addiction) is: Tried to help once, got into problems (set family up with house of a friend), almost got into financial problems myself (almost lend them money but was stopped by wife, would have lost it all). But at least I could tell myself I tried. But how far would you go? An addict will take you away from your family and kids if you let them. So what to do? Hope they take the first step themselves. Be clear that you will help them take steps, but only steps you agree with (I once got alcohol for said family, the begging and bad state got to me, at some point an alcoholic will improve on alcohol), but I still feel bad about that today.
    - worldsayshi 3y ago
      > So what to do? Hope they take the first step themselves. Be clear that you will help them take steps, but only steps you agree with (I once got alcohol for said family, the begging and bad state got to me, at some point an alcoholic will improve on alcohol), but I still feel bad about that today. As someone who had to give up on a close friend and addict, you have to set razor sharp boundaries for yourself. And if that doesn't work you have to leave. I think very few people have the capacity to make the right decisions when a loved one is slowly slipping into a hole of misery of their own making while begging you to keep them company on the way down.
raziel2p 3y ago
I think it's a bit reductionist to say it's devoid of purpose and meaning. Have you asked her what she feels her purpose/meaning is? You can disagree with it (I would as well), but I wouldn't assume she doesn't find any purpose/meaning in it. If she gets angry about it, then probably there is something deeper going on. Or, you're just asking the wrong way (if you come in assuming there's no meaning/purpose to her life, that could easily happen). If there's something deeper going on, then social media just amplifies things. Specifically about cosmetics and the beauty industry - people have complained about the effects of supermodels on TV, movies, billboards, magazine ads etc. for more than 30 years, social media has just taken it to the next level. I don't disagree with anything you said, but I do think it's important to add depth to the argument if we actually want to change the world for a better place.
- noduerme 3y ago
  When someone is obsessed or drugged to the point that you can't have a rational conversation and they're too angry or volatile to approach with any criticism, then it's not really your fault for coming at them the wrong way. Sometimes caring about someone means showing them that what they think they want is garbage that's hurting them. That will probably hurt their feelings, and they might lash out at you for it, but the alternative is doing nothing or enabling them and watching them drown.
  - raziel2p 3y ago
    I agree with everything you wrote, but also think that if you actually care about the other person getting better, you have to be pragmatic. Set and respect your own boundaries, but tough love does not work on everyone.
  - lucumo 3y ago
    > obsessed I don't know. What one person calls an obsession can easily be called a hobby by someone else. Personally, I like my little obsessions. I like them a lot better than judgemental people in my life. If someone were to start a "rational conversation" with me where they made me feel like I had to justify my "garbage obsession", well, I wouldn't want to talk to them anymore.
gardenhedge 3y ago
It just sounds like you're not part of her life. It sounds like you live together. Imo, that's absolutely normal behaviour between siblings.
- skilled 3y ago
  We don’t live together. But we have a rocky past for sure. I was older and so I got a head start during my teens for all the bad vices during that age; drugs, alcohol, excessive partying. By the time she got around to it, I had already wisened up and basically lost communication with her. I went on to do other things with my life and actually put in effort to experience new stuff. She on the other hand did not. She found more excuses (dropped out of uni twice) than solutions.
  - me_me_me 3y ago
    I don't know how much you care about her, but it sounds like you do care at least a little. Don't tell her what to do, or how to fix her life. Go to her and tell her you are worried about her, that you are always no matter what there for her. And if she ever needs help you will be there for her. Don't judge dont advice but make sure to let her know you care and will help when she comes around.
yawboakye 3y ago
i find this to be, unfortunately, the current western stance on responsibility towards anyone: irresponsibility. for some reason, leaving people to go their way, wherever it may lead them, has been interpreted to be the good and the moral duty of anyone who understands what freedom (for intelligent beings) means. with all due respect, that’s cowardice and a neglect of duty. i explained to my sibling the other day that we cannot live our lives however we wanted because of our layers of responsibility: first to ourselves (as a human beings in this civilization), then to our family and friends (who expect to count on us at some point), to the society we inhabit (i am currently an immigrant), the human race, and lastly the environment. those are not easy responsibilities and they could crush anyone. but absconding isn’t a choice: we’re not here for selfish reasons. i think you should intervene, at whatever cost to you. because no one else would, and depending on how persistent you are, she’d be grateful for the care and attention you showed. because that’s the sort of action that pure love motivates. good luck
- skilled 3y ago
  I have tried being supportive on multiple occasions. I offered to help with building her a platform online since she spends so much time there. I offered to team up with her in case she wants to create an eCommerce site. The discussion always ends with, “I don’t know”. I have tried various approaches, including being provocative, and that is why I said it is not worth it. I am not abandoning her by any means and we talk. We are on good terms so to speak, but sadly those good terms only extend to lengths of her own comfort. She has a genuine problem with sharing who she is as a person and that is not easy to work with. When every other thing you say gets interpreted as an “attack” or “you are crossing boundaries”, it makes no sense to push the person to end up where you started.
  - michaelsalim 3y ago
    I don't normally comment on these kinds of topic but I thought I should chip in on this one. The things you have listed are all solutions to a problem that you think she has. Something in the line of "If you/we do X, you'll be happier. Trust me" Honestly, it doesn't have to be that complex. I was shocked to read about the platform and the eCommerce site. That's such a HN solution to an ultimately human problem. I believe the only thing you need to focus on right now is to understand where she's coming from. Do you know why she does the thing she does? Do you know what she feels about it? That's it. Simple. But it'll be hard for sure. Because to you (and me), it's very clearly an issue that needs to be "fixed". But how would you feel if someone keeps telling you solutions to things you don't think are a problem? Like: "Hey, do you want a custom social media site so that you don't spend so much time on HN?" - the implication is that you're a HN addict. My first response would be defensive. "I think HN is good. You haven't even spent much time on it. How would you know anything about it? " I think that unless there's this common ground of understanding and support, you'll never get anywhere.
aranelsurion 3y ago
As I'm trying to find a more charitable point of view on her lifestyle: if this is how she prefers to spend her free time and if it doesn't impair her ability to exist as a functioning adult, is it really that bad? I mean I personally know people who rarely interact with others other than work, and do weird things like playing with electronics and games all day, mostly just for fun and not for profit. They are often happy as they are, I'm sure many of them are on this very website. Your sister sounds a bit like the TikTok version of the weird nerd stereotype, replace the PCBs with cosmetics and games with celebrity gossip. Their influencers sell lipsticks instead of 3d printed desk toys and mechanical switches. For me it's difficult to recognize TikTok stuff as a legitimate interest and understand her devotion to it, but then many of the hacker stuff must seem the same to the people outside of these circles. Not that I know her situation better than you do of course, this was more of a thought experiment on trying to understand a niche that I know very little about.
- lm28469 3y ago
  Are we talking about long lasting happiness or repeated short lasting pleasures ? Are your short term pleasures in line with your long term goals ? That's what supposedly differentiate us from most other animals, the capability to think about the future, and act accordingly. Regret is one of the worse feeling
lm28469 3y ago
> But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning. People have been warning about it since the birth of capitalism and consumerism, although even the most pessimistic ones didn't expect we'd get so far down the rabbit hole, the internet sped up the whole process a thousand times. The loss of meaning will be the greatest thing we'll have to fight against in this century, we're just at the beginning. > I just wish there was an easy way out of it. I personally think it's lost for a few generations, people who fall into the rabbit hole while their brain is still developing will have absolutely no way out. What makes the system thrive is the same thing that destroys individuals, the group goal is diametrically opposed to the individual needs
heresie-dabord 3y ago
I understand your frustration and -- perhaps -- a feeling of having no agency in the situation. But at the same time I find this sentence fascinating and scary: > It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. Inverting the order of your explanations (to examine the weighting), we have: estimated low return for investment/effort avoidance of drama (the other's emotional upheaval) relinquishment of participatory role in guiding the other relinquishment of influence/interest in the other's life If you were a parent talking about your child, people would certainly admonish you. Yet because she is a young adult and you are merely siblings, many more people might agree with your complete detachment. Can a person who obviously needs guidance/intervention not be worth the time ? Even though the person is in one's family ? The narcissocial media actively create an illusion that gratifies loneliness and isolation. Modern urban life had already become a reality of denaturing, competition, isolation, and indifference. The antipatterns run deep. But then you add... > But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning. Your family member seems to be in need of help. It takes a family/village, as they say. We too often omit to remind ourselves that a person becomes a person through other people. [1] [1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy
- skilled 3y ago
  I understand what you're saying, but that's not how life works. If a person has no anchor and they deliberately avoid establishing that anchor in their lives, then how do you expect them to stay stable when going gets tough? I have to respect her as a person first and foremost, and I cannot enforce my own thoughts/ideas because I think that is what's best for her. She needs to find it for herself, and then establish that as her anchor. If it is cosmetics, then so be it. I have no gripe with that. What I do have a gripe with is reluctancy to be a functional human being and engaging with your family and friends. As I said in another comment, I offered to help her to do stuff online on multiple occasions. But she can't even accept that, or come to terms with it. Hypothetically, that might also mean she knows that perhaps it's not what she truly wants for herself, as far as building a life (anchor) around it. I'm not detached, and neither is anyone in my family.
HlessClaudesman 3y ago
She may not be aware that there is a problem. My understanding is that game / social media addiction is an attempt to not think about real life things, including acknowledging that so much time has been wasted staring into the black mirror. My advice is to let her know that you think she has a media addiction, then at least she has some level of awareness.
- criddell 3y ago
  Jonathan Swift supposedly said: You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into. I think that's typically true but I also would try anyway.
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    I don't think that's true with mental illness. He's referring to emotions being the source of a person's beliefs rather than reason. People can learn coping skills to deal with things they can't control. Reasoning can override emotion. For myself, learning I was bipolar allowed me to understand what was happening and be able to put things in context. I still need medication but I don't need as much of it.
xinayder 3y ago
I try to avoid mainstream social media because it makes me uncomfortable. I started after putting on my tinfoil hat after Snowden's revelations and slowly drifted away from them, then was dragged back because most of my friends had Twitter, then I decided to finally get rid of my Twitter after Musk bought it. I have instagram and almost never use it. It's addicting to me in a sense that when I have nothing to do I'll open up the app and endlessly scroll through the feed, check stories of people I follow. It made me uncomfortable because all of the stories of people I know looked fake somehow, everyone smiling, having a good time, making specific poses to look good on Instagram, but in reality their life is not full of roses. It made me uncomfortable when I had bad days, where I felt like I was never going to achieve the happiness people show on the social network. Luckily, wen this thought occurred, I was able to pinpoint it and say "well, this is NOT real, they are just faking it for likes and followers. you should feel good that you don't have this and you should value personal contact over likes on a website". Since then I only use Instagram to browse for dog/pet videos. But I have some acquaintances that they act like their life depends on instagram. Hell, I had a friend who spent all of her time watching stupid tiktok videos disseminating fake news and pseudoscience (and she was studying to become a psychologist), reading stupid things on facebook, and when she wasn't busy with this she would constantly complain to me how she self-evaluated that she had depression and anxiety, how her life is shitty. She was a pretty woman and all the time told me she wanted to change her appearance because of something she saw on facebook or tiktok, and I guess it wasn't enough for me to tell her she was perfect the way she is, even with her issues. She never listened and tried to convince me that the cosmetic changes she'd do weren't permanent.
StefanBatory 3y ago
But isn't there a question of what causes what? Is she terminally online because she's ill or is she I'll because she's terminally online
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Both. It's a feedback loop keeping her in place. Like with many (all?) addictions, you get stuck in a situation where the same activity makes your situation worse and provides a short-term reprieve from immediate consequences. You take a hit to briefly fix the accumulated damage from all the previous hits.
hartator 3y ago
Maybe she thinks the same thing about us doom scrolling HN.
- disambiguation 3y ago
  she just needs to learn2code
randomdata 3y ago
> She doesn't share her actual thoughts That's where social media has been most damaging. You can't share your thoughts anymore. The 'Redditization' of the world means that sharing thoughts is met with hostility. No longer can you just throw something out there, no matter how stupid. These days you have carry an entire encyclopedia with you in order to back up every last thing you say and if you utter anything that isn't deemed 100% perfect by those listening, the social scorn will fall upon you. > It's bizarre. Is it, though? Once you've felt said social scorn enough you no longer see words as a way to make friends, so turning to beauty is the natural progression. People like to be around beautiful people – or at least so it appears to those looking from the outside in, right? If that doesn't work, then you can easily fall into a cycle of thinking "maybe this next surgery is the one that will make me beautiful enough!"
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- worldsayshi 3y ago
  This is touching on something very important but I feel there's a lot more to it. There's a lot of mystery around this for me. Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals?
  - Moru 3y ago
    It's sadly not just one thing that goes wrong. But at the base of it, it's the human faults at play. It's just being amplified by social media and the easy communication on Internet.
  - lumb63 3y ago
    I think it’s a way of farming status/clout. People who make fun of people who pose fringe ideas are rewarded with likes. People who shut down people on “the other side” are rewarded with likes. People can get likes by pushing the prominent ideology and kowtowing to that majority. It’s for their personal benefit, and being online removes the real-life downside of bullying or disagreeing with someone where you have to actually defend your ideas or deal with someone who is visibly upset by your actions. In conclusion, the upside of nitpicking is amplified by our tribal instincts, and the downside is muted by the nature of being online.
pelagicAustral 3y ago
My brother is essentially the male version of this, just swap the cosmetics for video game DLCs. He's early 20's, no job, no interest in work, no interest in getting out of the house, no interest on anything... talking to him is the most frustrating experience ever, nothing comes out of him, no emotion... I talked so many times, tried to get an idea of what might drive him: travelling, learning, walking around in the mountain, making money, wasting money, drinking, smoking, drawing dicks on wall, anything! honestly, like "give me something to work with"... He's been seeing a psychiatrist for a few years now... far as I can tell that is doing nothing... He's a broken individual. I honestly do not know if there is a way back to reality for him (and so many others, these days)
- silverquiet 3y ago
  Was the psychiatrist his idea or the parents'? I assume the parents, but if it was his then that's something. I heard something interesting on a podcast recently - Kara Swisher was interviewing her son who said that if you're Gen A, it's sort of hard not to be a nihilist. For me personally, I sort of look at how fast the world is heating up and do some basic math about life expectancy, and I'm sort of expecting to see some shit, but I can't imagine tacking on a decade or three to that. Psychologically, what you're describing is anhedonia, but as someone with these tendencies myself, I sometimes wonder if I just lack whatever sorts of denial mechanisms most people have to get through the day.
  - rchaud 3y ago
    The oldest Gen A person is 14yo, I was plenty nihilistic then too, and that was in the golden age of the 90s.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      But there's a key difference: If you're a nihilist 14 year old today, you're surrounded by both people and media that are reinforcing your nihilism instead of countering it. So your "nihilism phase" (if you have one) is much more likely to snowball.
rmbyrro 3y ago
In my family, helping a sister in this sort of dead end is exactly what a brother is expected to help with. It's not about 'telling my sister what to do'. It's about helping someone sick (my conclusion from your superficial description, reality might be different?).
correctstaple 3y ago
> how easy it is to get stuck in this cycle. I just wish there was an easy way out of it What you described may be body dysmorphic disorder. Social media aggravates that, but it is not the cause: BDD is a variant of OCD. Like OCD, it can be effectively treated with a specific kind of therapy (exposure and response prevention). I know a lot of people have replied to your post, but I don’t think anyone has mentioned this possibility yet.
swader999 3y ago
This is where you use your tech skills to break her addiction. Degrade her social media queries randomly. Mess up the dopamine rewards. Maybe a pihole add on or something like that?
jmyeet 3y ago
I don't pretend to know your sister's situation but one thing I've become convinced of through seeing the effects of the pandemic is we have an epidemic of undiagnosed mental health issues, particularly ADHD and ASD. I bring this up for several reasons. First, such conditions are especially underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed in girls and women. Second, even now ADHD is still heavily misunderstood with people focusing on the "hyperactivitiy" part, which is really only one variant. Third, the combination of isolation and focusing on something that doesn't seem to fit that (ie cosmetics and cosmetic surgery) screams coping mechanism and nervous system dysregulation to me. 30+ years ago such people would be forced out into the world. Some would be helped by this. Others would merely cope (ie masking). Some would be further traumatized by this and no one (including them) would recognize it. I've heard from many teachers who deal with ADHD/ASD students that it becomes pretty obvious that their parents are undiagnosed for these very same conditions. Your sister might be described as a NEET in Western parlance but this isn't new or exclusive to the West. Japan has had hikikimoris from at least the 1990s. It's worth adding that young people aren't stupid. Many of them recognize the hopelessness of their situation, economically speaking. Rents are crippling, home ownership looks increasingly impossibly to ever reach, student debt is potentially crippling and job prospects aren't great. We're crazy if we think young people don't recognize this so we have a hopelessness crisis on top of all of this. So is social media allowing people to isolate and cope or is it the cause? Is ADHD/ASD more prevelant now? If so, why? Or was it just underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed until now? I don't know. To me it seems like it might exacerbate existing issues and it's only one facet of many of how our society is increasingly broken and failing young people.
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  It's heavily underdiagnosed, even now
sidewndr46 3y ago
Life is devoid of purpose and meaning. It has only what you choose to assign to it. You can't coerce someone into making that choice.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  It is, but when people bemoan lack of meaning/purpose they're just talking about feelings. It's a sensory thing, the rationalizations are just an attempt to explain and make sense of it. We're bad at predicting what makes us happy and even worse at making sound judgements through negative emotions. Those in the middle of such an experience don't want to believe that their habits are exacerbating or responsible for their problems, because change is uncomfortable. They want to continue to feed addiction.
paul7986 3y ago
She might have really bad social anxiety, ocd and or some other social disorder that's pretty common in your early to mid to even late 20s. I had it and withdrew too until I started talking about it with others my age only to find out they were all crazy / normal too. Thinking your the only one dealing with such and never talking about and or hearing others ur age or close in age deal with it too is the worst thing ...she needs to talk about it and know she is completely normal and many many others her age deal with the same too
commandlinefan 3y ago
> she spends most of her time in her room on the phone They said the same thing about TV for most of my childhood.
maxrecursion 3y ago
This shows the real problem is more getting sucked into online social groups rather than having constant communication with real life friends. The toxic part of social media is the online personas and interactions with strangers, who are perceived as friends. There is a balance of letting kids have messenger and play games online with friends, than letting them have social media accounts, and burrow into cesspools of online activities that a lot of these social sites are.
dotnet00 3y ago
To me this reads less like a social media issue and more like she's depressed and something about the way you're asking her is off. I saw a couple of years of similar reactions from my sisters after they went through some difficult times without any of us knowing (since they were studying abroad and this was before easy internet calling). They'd get mad when asked seemingly innocuous questions, which turned out to be because the way the questions were phrased came off as insulting or dismissive of their problems in some way. We didn't even know about these problems since they never told us, but that didn't really matter for them. It took years of slowly rebuilding trust for them to open up again.
- mm263 3y ago
  > To me thos reads less like a social media issue and more like she's depressed With social media, it’s hard to gauge what’s the chicken and what’s the egg in this issue. Is she on social media because she is depressed and the brain is looking for quick dopamine? Or is being in social media making her more depressed?
  - quest88 3y ago
    I don't think social media helps. It probably exacerbates the underlying issue? Otherwise we'd all be like this.
MrYellowP 3y ago
> It's her life Clearly it's not. It's the life of those she copies and is influenced by. I strongly doubt any of the people like your sister are actually making actual decisions about their lives. You absolutely should try getting through to her, because that's in her best long-term interest. She's literally destroying her life.
billfor 3y ago
It's called a cat person.
serial_dev 3y ago
If I felt this way, I'd try to get my sister to realize what's happening to her, get to the bottom of the issue together, and help her get out of it. And be persistent to a degree, show her that you care and you are there for her (and actually be there for her, do something with her). Be understanding, some amount of video entertainment is okay. Be there for her, be patient, and know when to take a break about trying to change her bad habits. I assume you also need to be prepared for the unfortunate possibility that she just won't budge and decides to spend her life in the matrix.
uconnectlol 3y ago
> she has slowly isolated herself from life and her family, she spends most of her time in her room on the phone and does weird things like get cosmetic surgeries, ordering cosmetics, etc. It's bizarre. this is not the average social media user. the problem is addiction, not doing surgery to yourself. if social media was banned or age gated you would have to ban wikipedia next as its also very easy to get addicted to doing a tree traversal of interesting articles starting at the single one article you intended to read. also stack exchange. pardon my tone deafness to your tragedy, but this is a political issue, and your post is being used for political purposes. this is also a waste of my tax money and proof that taxation is theft. if i was a parent i would just be a good parent like my parents and slap my kids if they get addicted to upvoting shit on social media just as i would slap them if they get addicted to watching tv, playing arcade games (since i would provide them with real games and not gacha shit, the former which still had the addiction problem and the exact same dumb discussions in the 90s)
skywhopper 3y ago
She gets cosmetic surgery without leaving the house?
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
I went through that phase but with World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. And I'm now still in that phase but with programming. So I'm essentially your sister but smarter and cooler in every way. My condolences.
boplicity 3y ago
This sounds very much like classic addictive behavior. I recommend reading up on Al-Anon, so you can learn more about what you can and can't do, in terms of helping an addict.
klntsky 3y ago
> It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. You are a part of the problem.
- trogdor 3y ago
  Have you experienced family members in addiction? If you have, I’m interested in hearing your story.
deleted 3y ago
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anavette 3y ago
Your sister sounds like my brother (minus the cosmetics— his focus is on other things). I can deeply relate to your experience. I'd highly recommend the book "Hikikomori: Adolescence Without End" by Saito Tamaki, translated by Jeffrey Angles. First published in 1998 it describes the "hikikomori" social/psychological phenomenon, and ways treatment has been approached. Ultimately, Saito observes that nobody can "fix" the individual hikikomori directly— therapy must be multi-faceted, continuous, and ongoing, focused on reducing stigma and shame. And for all that, may ultimately not be effective.
vaidhy 3y ago
> It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it eithe For someone not from US, this comes across as weird. She is your sister, so why is the emotional upheaval not worth it? Who is it worth for? Why is not your place to tell her she is going down? If not for family, who will you do it for?
asdf6969 3y ago
I’m like this too except a man. It’s because I need to work on myself before I date or make new friends. I think it used to be easier to be happy as a loser before phones made us too self aware. It’s hard to be confident when I’m so aware of how much better things could be, and there’s really no excuse for failure when I can get a step by step guide on anything I want.
- seabrookmx 3y ago
  > happy as a loser "Loser" is however you want to define it. If you legitimately want certain things (fitness, skills, whatever), then by all means go out and get them. But don't forget some people are living in a hippie commune, or in a van, by choice. There's lots of these types that are completely broke and "losers" by some definition but they're fulfilled because they can spend more time hiking, painting, or whatever it is they want in life. This is my long way of saying, don't let social media define what "success" is in your eyes :) > I need to work on myself before I date or make new friends Real friends/partners will see you at your worst and stick around. IMO if you think you need to do XYZ first you'll never take the leap to make these connections. The fact that you're working on yourself is what they'll see.. "it's the journey not the destination"
- talldrinkofwhat 3y ago
  There are no step-by-step guides for living your life. If there were, the only person who could write them would be you 20 years in the future. If you were to follow them, the person who wrote them would not exist, because the wisdom of knowing what to do and what not to do is borne from error embodied. Work on yourself, but do not wait for some magical moment where you say "ah, so this is what it's like to be complete". The moment does not exist. Find people who will accept you as you are, and they will help you become the person you strive to be.
Xeyz0r 3y ago
It's even harder for women to not to get in influenced be this crap about cosmetics...
mensetmanusman 3y ago
"It's her life so I leave her alone" this statement is foundational to secular ethics, and it is arguably part of the problem. Sometimes love requires helping when it hurts.
v7oTC0cYel81C 3y ago
people are endlessly fascinating. I know nothing about your sister, or you, or anyone else on HN, yet here is a hive of tech oriented individuals trying to crack the nut of human nature. I guess it's something that resonates with many here, either by first hand experience or second like yourself. What can be done? Does anything need to be done? Is she doing harm to herself and others, or is that just your perception? Maybe she doesn't share your values. Maybe she senses your judgement. Do you really have her best interest in mind, or are you projecting an idea of what a good sister should be? As in you can't be proud of who she is. But why not? And why do you want to be? To what extent are you responsible? Should you feel guilty if you fail to change her? Should you feel dread if she is unable to change? Does she owe it to you to change herself? But who knows what the next thing will be that you find disappointing about her. Must she walk the tight-rope of your approval? What is your true opinion anyway? Is it truly good, and should anyone truly care? Everyone has an idea of how life is and how it should be. Oh the problem is so very clear. If only everything was exactly the way I imagine it, oh if only, then there would be peace, happiness, and harmony for all! right? And yet we're endlessly frustrated by the life that could be, the life that should be, perpetually occupying the space beyond our finger tips.
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m463 3y ago
I remember Larry Niven's science fiction talked about wireheads, who lived with "drouds" wired into their brains' pleasure centers. But after deleting addicting games/apps for my own good I now realize that reality is not only very complex, but also just as simple as niven's idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) also: https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com :)

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gambiting 3y ago

>>But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning. The thing is, I'm sure for her it doesn't feel that way. She probably feels a lot of purpose and meaning in following all these people online and participating in social activities around them. That's part of the addiction too - it can feel meaningful for a long time.

fisf 3y ago
> That's part of the addiction too - it can feel meaningful for a long time. That's obviously true of meth,etc. as well. The first step is always to realize you have a problem that's negatively impacting your life.

tossandthrow 3y ago

Out of curiosity: What do you think she should do? Is it that she does not go out with friends? I think her situation is not at all bizarre – I actually think it is overly normal. Going out with friends: Fair enough, you sit at the same bar talk about the same things, etc. I think we are in a crisis of communities. Even if your sister wanted to engage there are no good places to do it.

emmelaich 3y ago

As her brother you might be the only one capable of rescuing her from a shitlife. No (wo)man is an island, entire unto itself.

apexalpha 3y ago

>It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. In my culture this is exactly what family should do. "Soft doctors make stinking wounds".

worthless-trash 3y ago
> and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. If you loved your sister, you should do something, if direct confrontation isnt working, take another route. > In my culture this is exactly what family should do. I assume you mean "family should intervene here", because if you don't who would ?
- teekert 3y ago
  Sure, you may try (I did and don't regret it, sounds like OP also tried), if only for you to feel better about it yourself. But my experience with addiction in the family is that they can and will drag you down with them. To love is to let go, at some point. My experience (with alcohol addiction) is: Tried to help once, got into problems (set family up with house of a friend), almost got into financial problems myself (almost lend them money but was stopped by wife, would have lost it all). But at least I could tell myself I tried. But how far would you go? An addict will take you away from your family and kids if you let them. So what to do? Hope they take the first step themselves. Be clear that you will help them take steps, but only steps you agree with (I once got alcohol for said family, the begging and bad state got to me, at some point an alcoholic will improve on alcohol), but I still feel bad about that today.
  - worldsayshi 3y ago
    > So what to do? Hope they take the first step themselves. Be clear that you will help them take steps, but only steps you agree with (I once got alcohol for said family, the begging and bad state got to me, at some point an alcoholic will improve on alcohol), but I still feel bad about that today. As someone who had to give up on a close friend and addict, you have to set razor sharp boundaries for yourself. And if that doesn't work you have to leave. I think very few people have the capacity to make the right decisions when a loved one is slowly slipping into a hole of misery of their own making while begging you to keep them company on the way down.

raziel2p 3y ago

I think it's a bit reductionist to say it's devoid of purpose and meaning. Have you asked her what she feels her purpose/meaning is? You can disagree with it (I would as well), but I wouldn't assume she doesn't find any purpose/meaning in it. If she gets angry about it, then probably there is something deeper going on. Or, you're just asking the wrong way (if you come in assuming there's no meaning/purpose to her life, that could easily happen). If there's something deeper going on, then social media just amplifies things. Specifically about cosmetics and the beauty industry - people have complained about the effects of supermodels on TV, movies, billboards, magazine ads etc. for more than 30 years, social media has just taken it to the next level. I don't disagree with anything you said, but I do think it's important to add depth to the argument if we actually want to change the world for a better place.

noduerme 3y ago
When someone is obsessed or drugged to the point that you can't have a rational conversation and they're too angry or volatile to approach with any criticism, then it's not really your fault for coming at them the wrong way. Sometimes caring about someone means showing them that what they think they want is garbage that's hurting them. That will probably hurt their feelings, and they might lash out at you for it, but the alternative is doing nothing or enabling them and watching them drown.
- raziel2p 3y ago
  I agree with everything you wrote, but also think that if you actually care about the other person getting better, you have to be pragmatic. Set and respect your own boundaries, but tough love does not work on everyone.
- lucumo 3y ago
  > obsessed I don't know. What one person calls an obsession can easily be called a hobby by someone else. Personally, I like my little obsessions. I like them a lot better than judgemental people in my life. If someone were to start a "rational conversation" with me where they made me feel like I had to justify my "garbage obsession", well, I wouldn't want to talk to them anymore.

gardenhedge 3y ago

It just sounds like you're not part of her life. It sounds like you live together. Imo, that's absolutely normal behaviour between siblings.

skilled 3y ago
We don’t live together. But we have a rocky past for sure. I was older and so I got a head start during my teens for all the bad vices during that age; drugs, alcohol, excessive partying. By the time she got around to it, I had already wisened up and basically lost communication with her. I went on to do other things with my life and actually put in effort to experience new stuff. She on the other hand did not. She found more excuses (dropped out of uni twice) than solutions.
- me_me_me 3y ago
  I don't know how much you care about her, but it sounds like you do care at least a little. Don't tell her what to do, or how to fix her life. Go to her and tell her you are worried about her, that you are always no matter what there for her. And if she ever needs help you will be there for her. Don't judge dont advice but make sure to let her know you care and will help when she comes around.

yawboakye 3y ago

i find this to be, unfortunately, the current western stance on responsibility towards anyone: irresponsibility. for some reason, leaving people to go their way, wherever it may lead them, has been interpreted to be the good and the moral duty of anyone who understands what freedom (for intelligent beings) means. with all due respect, that’s cowardice and a neglect of duty. i explained to my sibling the other day that we cannot live our lives however we wanted because of our layers of responsibility: first to ourselves (as a human beings in this civilization), then to our family and friends (who expect to count on us at some point), to the society we inhabit (i am currently an immigrant), the human race, and lastly the environment. those are not easy responsibilities and they could crush anyone. but absconding isn’t a choice: we’re not here for selfish reasons. i think you should intervene, at whatever cost to you. because no one else would, and depending on how persistent you are, she’d be grateful for the care and attention you showed. because that’s the sort of action that pure love motivates. good luck

skilled 3y ago
I have tried being supportive on multiple occasions. I offered to help with building her a platform online since she spends so much time there. I offered to team up with her in case she wants to create an eCommerce site. The discussion always ends with, “I don’t know”. I have tried various approaches, including being provocative, and that is why I said it is not worth it. I am not abandoning her by any means and we talk. We are on good terms so to speak, but sadly those good terms only extend to lengths of her own comfort. She has a genuine problem with sharing who she is as a person and that is not easy to work with. When every other thing you say gets interpreted as an “attack” or “you are crossing boundaries”, it makes no sense to push the person to end up where you started.
- michaelsalim 3y ago
  I don't normally comment on these kinds of topic but I thought I should chip in on this one. The things you have listed are all solutions to a problem that you think she has. Something in the line of "If you/we do X, you'll be happier. Trust me" Honestly, it doesn't have to be that complex. I was shocked to read about the platform and the eCommerce site. That's such a HN solution to an ultimately human problem. I believe the only thing you need to focus on right now is to understand where she's coming from. Do you know why she does the thing she does? Do you know what she feels about it? That's it. Simple. But it'll be hard for sure. Because to you (and me), it's very clearly an issue that needs to be "fixed". But how would you feel if someone keeps telling you solutions to things you don't think are a problem? Like: "Hey, do you want a custom social media site so that you don't spend so much time on HN?" - the implication is that you're a HN addict. My first response would be defensive. "I think HN is good. You haven't even spent much time on it. How would you know anything about it? " I think that unless there's this common ground of understanding and support, you'll never get anywhere.

aranelsurion 3y ago

As I'm trying to find a more charitable point of view on her lifestyle: if this is how she prefers to spend her free time and if it doesn't impair her ability to exist as a functioning adult, is it really that bad? I mean I personally know people who rarely interact with others other than work, and do weird things like playing with electronics and games all day, mostly just for fun and not for profit. They are often happy as they are, I'm sure many of them are on this very website. Your sister sounds a bit like the TikTok version of the weird nerd stereotype, replace the PCBs with cosmetics and games with celebrity gossip. Their influencers sell lipsticks instead of 3d printed desk toys and mechanical switches. For me it's difficult to recognize TikTok stuff as a legitimate interest and understand her devotion to it, but then many of the hacker stuff must seem the same to the people outside of these circles. Not that I know her situation better than you do of course, this was more of a thought experiment on trying to understand a niche that I know very little about.

lm28469 3y ago
Are we talking about long lasting happiness or repeated short lasting pleasures ? Are your short term pleasures in line with your long term goals ? That's what supposedly differentiate us from most other animals, the capability to think about the future, and act accordingly. Regret is one of the worse feeling

lm28469 3y ago

> But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning. People have been warning about it since the birth of capitalism and consumerism, although even the most pessimistic ones didn't expect we'd get so far down the rabbit hole, the internet sped up the whole process a thousand times. The loss of meaning will be the greatest thing we'll have to fight against in this century, we're just at the beginning. > I just wish there was an easy way out of it. I personally think it's lost for a few generations, people who fall into the rabbit hole while their brain is still developing will have absolutely no way out. What makes the system thrive is the same thing that destroys individuals, the group goal is diametrically opposed to the individual needs

heresie-dabord 3y ago

I understand your frustration and -- perhaps -- a feeling of having no agency in the situation. But at the same time I find this sentence fascinating and scary: > It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. Inverting the order of your explanations (to examine the weighting), we have: estimated low return for investment/effort avoidance of drama (the other's emotional upheaval) relinquishment of participatory role in guiding the other relinquishment of influence/interest in the other's life If you were a parent talking about your child, people would certainly admonish you. Yet because she is a young adult and you are merely siblings, many more people might agree with your complete detachment. Can a person who obviously needs guidance/intervention not be worth the time ? Even though the person is in one's family ? The narcissocial media actively create an illusion that gratifies loneliness and isolation. Modern urban life had already become a reality of denaturing, competition, isolation, and indifference. The antipatterns run deep. But then you add... > But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning. Your family member seems to be in need of help. It takes a family/village, as they say. We too often omit to remind ourselves that a person becomes a person through other people. [1] [1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy

skilled 3y ago
I understand what you're saying, but that's not how life works. If a person has no anchor and they deliberately avoid establishing that anchor in their lives, then how do you expect them to stay stable when going gets tough? I have to respect her as a person first and foremost, and I cannot enforce my own thoughts/ideas because I think that is what's best for her. She needs to find it for herself, and then establish that as her anchor. If it is cosmetics, then so be it. I have no gripe with that. What I do have a gripe with is reluctancy to be a functional human being and engaging with your family and friends. As I said in another comment, I offered to help her to do stuff online on multiple occasions. But she can't even accept that, or come to terms with it. Hypothetically, that might also mean she knows that perhaps it's not what she truly wants for herself, as far as building a life (anchor) around it. I'm not detached, and neither is anyone in my family.

HlessClaudesman 3y ago

She may not be aware that there is a problem. My understanding is that game / social media addiction is an attempt to not think about real life things, including acknowledging that so much time has been wasted staring into the black mirror. My advice is to let her know that you think she has a media addiction, then at least she has some level of awareness.

criddell 3y ago
Jonathan Swift supposedly said: You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into. I think that's typically true but I also would try anyway.
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  I don't think that's true with mental illness. He's referring to emotions being the source of a person's beliefs rather than reason. People can learn coping skills to deal with things they can't control. Reasoning can override emotion. For myself, learning I was bipolar allowed me to understand what was happening and be able to put things in context. I still need medication but I don't need as much of it.

xinayder 3y ago

I try to avoid mainstream social media because it makes me uncomfortable. I started after putting on my tinfoil hat after Snowden's revelations and slowly drifted away from them, then was dragged back because most of my friends had Twitter, then I decided to finally get rid of my Twitter after Musk bought it. I have instagram and almost never use it. It's addicting to me in a sense that when I have nothing to do I'll open up the app and endlessly scroll through the feed, check stories of people I follow. It made me uncomfortable because all of the stories of people I know looked fake somehow, everyone smiling, having a good time, making specific poses to look good on Instagram, but in reality their life is not full of roses. It made me uncomfortable when I had bad days, where I felt like I was never going to achieve the happiness people show on the social network. Luckily, wen this thought occurred, I was able to pinpoint it and say "well, this is NOT real, they are just faking it for likes and followers. you should feel good that you don't have this and you should value personal contact over likes on a website". Since then I only use Instagram to browse for dog/pet videos. But I have some acquaintances that they act like their life depends on instagram. Hell, I had a friend who spent all of her time watching stupid tiktok videos disseminating fake news and pseudoscience (and she was studying to become a psychologist), reading stupid things on facebook, and when she wasn't busy with this she would constantly complain to me how she self-evaluated that she had depression and anxiety, how her life is shitty. She was a pretty woman and all the time told me she wanted to change her appearance because of something she saw on facebook or tiktok, and I guess it wasn't enough for me to tell her she was perfect the way she is, even with her issues. She never listened and tried to convince me that the cosmetic changes she'd do weren't permanent.

StefanBatory 3y ago

But isn't there a question of what causes what? Is she terminally online because she's ill or is she I'll because she's terminally online

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Both. It's a feedback loop keeping her in place. Like with many (all?) addictions, you get stuck in a situation where the same activity makes your situation worse and provides a short-term reprieve from immediate consequences. You take a hit to briefly fix the accumulated damage from all the previous hits.

hartator 3y ago

Maybe she thinks the same thing about us doom scrolling HN.

disambiguation 3y ago
she just needs to learn2code

randomdata 3y ago

> She doesn't share her actual thoughts That's where social media has been most damaging. You can't share your thoughts anymore. The 'Redditization' of the world means that sharing thoughts is met with hostility. No longer can you just throw something out there, no matter how stupid. These days you have carry an entire encyclopedia with you in order to back up every last thing you say and if you utter anything that isn't deemed 100% perfect by those listening, the social scorn will fall upon you. > It's bizarre. Is it, though? Once you've felt said social scorn enough you no longer see words as a way to make friends, so turning to beauty is the natural progression. People like to be around beautiful people – or at least so it appears to those looking from the outside in, right? If that doesn't work, then you can easily fall into a cycle of thinking "maybe this next surgery is the one that will make me beautiful enough!"

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worldsayshi 3y ago
This is touching on something very important but I feel there's a lot more to it. There's a lot of mystery around this for me. Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals?
- Moru 3y ago
  It's sadly not just one thing that goes wrong. But at the base of it, it's the human faults at play. It's just being amplified by social media and the easy communication on Internet.
- lumb63 3y ago
  I think it’s a way of farming status/clout. People who make fun of people who pose fringe ideas are rewarded with likes. People who shut down people on “the other side” are rewarded with likes. People can get likes by pushing the prominent ideology and kowtowing to that majority. It’s for their personal benefit, and being online removes the real-life downside of bullying or disagreeing with someone where you have to actually defend your ideas or deal with someone who is visibly upset by your actions. In conclusion, the upside of nitpicking is amplified by our tribal instincts, and the downside is muted by the nature of being online.

pelagicAustral 3y ago

My brother is essentially the male version of this, just swap the cosmetics for video game DLCs. He's early 20's, no job, no interest in work, no interest in getting out of the house, no interest on anything... talking to him is the most frustrating experience ever, nothing comes out of him, no emotion... I talked so many times, tried to get an idea of what might drive him: travelling, learning, walking around in the mountain, making money, wasting money, drinking, smoking, drawing dicks on wall, anything! honestly, like "give me something to work with"... He's been seeing a psychiatrist for a few years now... far as I can tell that is doing nothing... He's a broken individual. I honestly do not know if there is a way back to reality for him (and so many others, these days)

silverquiet 3y ago
Was the psychiatrist his idea or the parents'? I assume the parents, but if it was his then that's something. I heard something interesting on a podcast recently - Kara Swisher was interviewing her son who said that if you're Gen A, it's sort of hard not to be a nihilist. For me personally, I sort of look at how fast the world is heating up and do some basic math about life expectancy, and I'm sort of expecting to see some shit, but I can't imagine tacking on a decade or three to that. Psychologically, what you're describing is anhedonia, but as someone with these tendencies myself, I sometimes wonder if I just lack whatever sorts of denial mechanisms most people have to get through the day.
- rchaud 3y ago
  The oldest Gen A person is 14yo, I was plenty nihilistic then too, and that was in the golden age of the 90s.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    But there's a key difference: If you're a nihilist 14 year old today, you're surrounded by both people and media that are reinforcing your nihilism instead of countering it. So your "nihilism phase" (if you have one) is much more likely to snowball.

rmbyrro 3y ago

In my family, helping a sister in this sort of dead end is exactly what a brother is expected to help with. It's not about 'telling my sister what to do'. It's about helping someone sick (my conclusion from your superficial description, reality might be different?).

correctstaple 3y ago

> how easy it is to get stuck in this cycle. I just wish there was an easy way out of it What you described may be body dysmorphic disorder. Social media aggravates that, but it is not the cause: BDD is a variant of OCD. Like OCD, it can be effectively treated with a specific kind of therapy (exposure and response prevention). I know a lot of people have replied to your post, but I don’t think anyone has mentioned this possibility yet.

swader999 3y ago

This is where you use your tech skills to break her addiction. Degrade her social media queries randomly. Mess up the dopamine rewards. Maybe a pihole add on or something like that?

jmyeet 3y ago

I don't pretend to know your sister's situation but one thing I've become convinced of through seeing the effects of the pandemic is we have an epidemic of undiagnosed mental health issues, particularly ADHD and ASD. I bring this up for several reasons. First, such conditions are especially underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed in girls and women. Second, even now ADHD is still heavily misunderstood with people focusing on the "hyperactivitiy" part, which is really only one variant. Third, the combination of isolation and focusing on something that doesn't seem to fit that (ie cosmetics and cosmetic surgery) screams coping mechanism and nervous system dysregulation to me. 30+ years ago such people would be forced out into the world. Some would be helped by this. Others would merely cope (ie masking). Some would be further traumatized by this and no one (including them) would recognize it. I've heard from many teachers who deal with ADHD/ASD students that it becomes pretty obvious that their parents are undiagnosed for these very same conditions. Your sister might be described as a NEET in Western parlance but this isn't new or exclusive to the West. Japan has had hikikimoris from at least the 1990s. It's worth adding that young people aren't stupid. Many of them recognize the hopelessness of their situation, economically speaking. Rents are crippling, home ownership looks increasingly impossibly to ever reach, student debt is potentially crippling and job prospects aren't great. We're crazy if we think young people don't recognize this so we have a hopelessness crisis on top of all of this. So is social media allowing people to isolate and cope or is it the cause? Is ADHD/ASD more prevelant now? If so, why? Or was it just underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed until now? I don't know. To me it seems like it might exacerbate existing issues and it's only one facet of many of how our society is increasingly broken and failing young people.

P_I_Staker 3y ago
It's heavily underdiagnosed, even now

sidewndr46 3y ago

Life is devoid of purpose and meaning. It has only what you choose to assign to it. You can't coerce someone into making that choice.

slothtrop 3y ago
It is, but when people bemoan lack of meaning/purpose they're just talking about feelings. It's a sensory thing, the rationalizations are just an attempt to explain and make sense of it. We're bad at predicting what makes us happy and even worse at making sound judgements through negative emotions. Those in the middle of such an experience don't want to believe that their habits are exacerbating or responsible for their problems, because change is uncomfortable. They want to continue to feed addiction.

paul7986 3y ago

She might have really bad social anxiety, ocd and or some other social disorder that's pretty common in your early to mid to even late 20s. I had it and withdrew too until I started talking about it with others my age only to find out they were all crazy / normal too. Thinking your the only one dealing with such and never talking about and or hearing others ur age or close in age deal with it too is the worst thing ...she needs to talk about it and know she is completely normal and many many others her age deal with the same too

commandlinefan 3y ago

> she spends most of her time in her room on the phone They said the same thing about TV for most of my childhood.

maxrecursion 3y ago

This shows the real problem is more getting sucked into online social groups rather than having constant communication with real life friends. The toxic part of social media is the online personas and interactions with strangers, who are perceived as friends. There is a balance of letting kids have messenger and play games online with friends, than letting them have social media accounts, and burrow into cesspools of online activities that a lot of these social sites are.

dotnet00 3y ago

To me this reads less like a social media issue and more like she's depressed and something about the way you're asking her is off. I saw a couple of years of similar reactions from my sisters after they went through some difficult times without any of us knowing (since they were studying abroad and this was before easy internet calling). They'd get mad when asked seemingly innocuous questions, which turned out to be because the way the questions were phrased came off as insulting or dismissive of their problems in some way. We didn't even know about these problems since they never told us, but that didn't really matter for them. It took years of slowly rebuilding trust for them to open up again.

mm263 3y ago
> To me thos reads less like a social media issue and more like she's depressed With social media, it’s hard to gauge what’s the chicken and what’s the egg in this issue. Is she on social media because she is depressed and the brain is looking for quick dopamine? Or is being in social media making her more depressed?
- quest88 3y ago
  I don't think social media helps. It probably exacerbates the underlying issue? Otherwise we'd all be like this.

MrYellowP 3y ago

> It's her life Clearly it's not. It's the life of those she copies and is influenced by. I strongly doubt any of the people like your sister are actually making actual decisions about their lives. You absolutely should try getting through to her, because that's in her best long-term interest. She's literally destroying her life.

billfor 3y ago

It's called a cat person.

serial_dev 3y ago

If I felt this way, I'd try to get my sister to realize what's happening to her, get to the bottom of the issue together, and help her get out of it. And be persistent to a degree, show her that you care and you are there for her (and actually be there for her, do something with her). Be understanding, some amount of video entertainment is okay. Be there for her, be patient, and know when to take a break about trying to change her bad habits. I assume you also need to be prepared for the unfortunate possibility that she just won't budge and decides to spend her life in the matrix.

uconnectlol 3y ago

> she has slowly isolated herself from life and her family, she spends most of her time in her room on the phone and does weird things like get cosmetic surgeries, ordering cosmetics, etc. It's bizarre. this is not the average social media user. the problem is addiction, not doing surgery to yourself. if social media was banned or age gated you would have to ban wikipedia next as its also very easy to get addicted to doing a tree traversal of interesting articles starting at the single one article you intended to read. also stack exchange. pardon my tone deafness to your tragedy, but this is a political issue, and your post is being used for political purposes. this is also a waste of my tax money and proof that taxation is theft. if i was a parent i would just be a good parent like my parents and slap my kids if they get addicted to upvoting shit on social media just as i would slap them if they get addicted to watching tv, playing arcade games (since i would provide them with real games and not gacha shit, the former which still had the addiction problem and the exact same dumb discussions in the 90s)

skywhopper 3y ago

She gets cosmetic surgery without leaving the house?

shrimp_emoji 3y ago

I went through that phase but with World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. And I'm now still in that phase but with programming. So I'm essentially your sister but smarter and cooler in every way. My condolences.

boplicity 3y ago

This sounds very much like classic addictive behavior. I recommend reading up on Al-Anon, so you can learn more about what you can and can't do, in terms of helping an addict.

klntsky 3y ago

> It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. You are a part of the problem.

trogdor 3y ago
Have you experienced family members in addiction? If you have, I’m interested in hearing your story.

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anavette 3y ago

Your sister sounds like my brother (minus the cosmetics— his focus is on other things). I can deeply relate to your experience. I'd highly recommend the book "Hikikomori: Adolescence Without End" by Saito Tamaki, translated by Jeffrey Angles. First published in 1998 it describes the "hikikomori" social/psychological phenomenon, and ways treatment has been approached. Ultimately, Saito observes that nobody can "fix" the individual hikikomori directly— therapy must be multi-faceted, continuous, and ongoing, focused on reducing stigma and shame. And for all that, may ultimately not be effective.

vaidhy 3y ago

> It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it eithe For someone not from US, this comes across as weird. She is your sister, so why is the emotional upheaval not worth it? Who is it worth for? Why is not your place to tell her she is going down? If not for family, who will you do it for?

asdf6969 3y ago

I’m like this too except a man. It’s because I need to work on myself before I date or make new friends. I think it used to be easier to be happy as a loser before phones made us too self aware. It’s hard to be confident when I’m so aware of how much better things could be, and there’s really no excuse for failure when I can get a step by step guide on anything I want.

seabrookmx 3y ago
> happy as a loser "Loser" is however you want to define it. If you legitimately want certain things (fitness, skills, whatever), then by all means go out and get them. But don't forget some people are living in a hippie commune, or in a van, by choice. There's lots of these types that are completely broke and "losers" by some definition but they're fulfilled because they can spend more time hiking, painting, or whatever it is they want in life. This is my long way of saying, don't let social media define what "success" is in your eyes :) > I need to work on myself before I date or make new friends Real friends/partners will see you at your worst and stick around. IMO if you think you need to do XYZ first you'll never take the leap to make these connections. The fact that you're working on yourself is what they'll see.. "it's the journey not the destination"
talldrinkofwhat 3y ago
There are no step-by-step guides for living your life. If there were, the only person who could write them would be you 20 years in the future. If you were to follow them, the person who wrote them would not exist, because the wisdom of knowing what to do and what not to do is borne from error embodied. Work on yourself, but do not wait for some magical moment where you say "ah, so this is what it's like to be complete". The moment does not exist. Find people who will accept you as you are, and they will help you become the person you strive to be.

Xeyz0r 3y ago

It's even harder for women to not to get in influenced be this crap about cosmetics...

mensetmanusman 3y ago

"It's her life so I leave her alone" this statement is foundational to secular ethics, and it is arguably part of the problem. Sometimes love requires helping when it hurts.

v7oTC0cYel81C 3y ago

people are endlessly fascinating. I know nothing about your sister, or you, or anyone else on HN, yet here is a hive of tech oriented individuals trying to crack the nut of human nature. I guess it's something that resonates with many here, either by first hand experience or second like yourself. What can be done? Does anything need to be done? Is she doing harm to herself and others, or is that just your perception? Maybe she doesn't share your values. Maybe she senses your judgement. Do you really have her best interest in mind, or are you projecting an idea of what a good sister should be? As in you can't be proud of who she is. But why not? And why do you want to be? To what extent are you responsible? Should you feel guilty if you fail to change her? Should you feel dread if she is unable to change? Does she owe it to you to change herself? But who knows what the next thing will be that you find disappointing about her. Must she walk the tight-rope of your approval? What is your true opinion anyway? Is it truly good, and should anyone truly care? Everyone has an idea of how life is and how it should be. Oh the problem is so very clear. If only everything was exactly the way I imagine it, oh if only, then there would be peace, happiness, and harmony for all! right? And yet we're endlessly frustrated by the life that could be, the life that should be, perpetually occupying the space beyond our finger tips.

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m463 3y ago

I remember Larry Niven's science fiction talked about wireheads, who lived with "drouds" wired into their brains' pleasure centers. But after deleting addicting games/apps for my own good I now realize that reality is not only very complex, but also just as simple as niven's idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction) also: https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com :)